A website that helped users locate Apple stores with iPhones and iPads available for sale has shut down its service after being hit with a notice alleging that it violated Apple.com's terms of service.

Apple-Tracker.com and iphone-check.herokuapp.com examined publicly available inventory information from Apple.com and tried to make it easier for people to navigate. The service gained some attention, with articles in the Los Angeles Times and other news sites.

The site now shows a message from developer Mordy Tikotzky saying, "I've decided to turn off the site. I'm not doing this because I want to, but rather because I received a DMCA takedown notice from Apple. I'm not really interested in picking a fight with apple so..... I guess it time to just say good bye." On Twitter, Tikotzky wrote, "It might be legal but I don't have the resources to fight with Apple."

Tikotzky posted the text of the notice from an attorney representing Apple. "I have a good faith belief that the the website identified by URL below is unlawful because, among other things, the page scrapes and collects data from apple.com in violation of the apple.com Internet Service Terms of Use," the notice says.

Those terms say, "You may not use any 'deep-link', 'page-scrape', 'robot', 'spider' or other automatic device, program, algorithm or methodology, or any similar or equivalent manual process, to access, acquire, copy or monitor any portion of the Site or any Content, or in any way reproduce or circumvent the navigational structure or presentation of the Site or any Content, to obtain or attempt to obtain any materials, documents or information through any means not purposely made available through the Site. Apple reserves the right to bar any such activity."

The notice asks the site owner to "act expeditiously to remove or otherwise disable" the Web service.

Tikotzky called the Apple letter a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) notice, but it actually does not mention the DMCA. On Twitter, Public Knowledge VP of Legal Affairs Sherwin Siy noted that Apple did not specify any copyright violations. "Leveraging ToS into a (c) complaint. If that becomes standard practice, you can send DMCA takedowns for anything," Siy write.

A cached version of Apple-Tracker.com notes that the website "looks up the information on Apple.com for each product and reformats it to make it easier to read."

Users can still find inventory information easily on Apple.com by selecting the product they want, clicking "Check availability," and entering their zip code:

I think they would have less of a problem with it if Apple Tracker did not have ads on it. While the ads probably just sustain the cost of the website, to Apple it is a source profiting on their data, despite it being public.

Someone more educated in the DMCA than me explain how this is a copyright issue?

Because Apple thinks all data it publishes on it's web site is copyrighted?

That's my best guess....oh, and the DMCA doesn't chill invention. /s

My guess would be that this is more of a "contract" issue since it involves a TOS for their website. Although their approach for actually suing you over this kind of stuff is really anyone's guess. There's certainly more than one way of looking at this.

Users can still find inventory information easily on Apple.com by selecting the product they want, clicking "Check availability," and entering their zip code

While you can still check availability that way, you have to do that once for every product your are interested in. Which can get irritating very quickly. I have to pick a specific color, size, and carrier to use the Apple in stock check page. With the website they took down it would tell me across the local stores, about all of the iPhone 5s configurations at once. I'm going to miss those pages.

I'm not sure how a person can violate terms of usage they never "accepted" - there is no pop-up that appears whenever someone visits Apple's website to make sure you agree to their terms of usage.

I'm pretty sure if this were to goto court (and the defendent wasn't bled of all his money) then the court would probably rule against Apple, or require them to create a splash screen for Terms of Usage.

Someone more educated in the DMCA than me explain how this is a copyright issue?

Excellent question as DMCA deals with copyright but the takedown says Terms of Service. I am quite confused as DMCA doesn't (shouldn't) apply for Terms of Service. Unless they are saying "don't use our images/store information", but that still isn't copyright. I own a business that deals with DMCA, I will see if my lawyers can explain this case to me.

My guess would be that this is more of a "contract" issue since it involves a TOS for their website. Although their approach for actually suing you over this kind of stuff is really anyone's guess. There's certainly more than one way of looking at this.

Most definitely. The citation that Apple listed is merely referring to the their terms of service. The terms of service has this clause and is listed on http://www.apple.com/legal/internet-ser ... /site.html. However, because the user had never agreed to it, that is there was never a “meeting of the minds” (see the Uniform Commercial Code of 1952), the contract/license that Apple has presented should hold no validity and would probably be struck down in court.

I don't know the DMCA in full. But from the portions of the act that I have studied in class, I don't believe this is covered under DMCA.

On another note, if Apple were to take this a copyright infringement claim, Apple-tracker could still claim fair-use under 17 U.S.C. § 107. This defense would probably be granted in court so long as the Apple-tracker's function is "transformative" (which I believe it is).

I'm pretty sure if this were to goto court (and the defendent wasn't bled of all his money) then the court would probably rule against Apple, or require them to create a splash screen for Terms of Usage.

I'm pretty sure the court would do what courts have always done, rule against the guy with a smaller lawyer budget.

Well that's unfortunate. I've been using that site to try and find a store with an iPhone (no luck yet)

I know you can check on the Apple site, but it was easier to just go to the one link and see all models in all stores nearby, instead of selecting the specifics of what I was looking for, then doing a store search.

I mean at the end of the day I saved little in terms of time, but it was still nice to have.

Someone more educated in the DMCA than me explain how this is a copyright issue?

Excellent question as DMCA deals with copyright but the takedown says Terms of Service. I am quite confused as DMCA doesn't (shouldn't) apply for Terms of Service. Unless they are saying "don't use our images/store information", but that still isn't copyright. I own a business that deals with DMCA, I will see if my lawyers can explain this case to me.

Why bother? The DMCA is a blunt instrument that is used to get a web site to take down any information that isn't wanted by another party. And misusing a DMCA notice has no consequences so there's no risk of punishment for using one incorrectly.

As a developer I hate other people scrapping data since it's prone to breaking. As a user I want data in a form I can use.

Maybe Apple can make everyone happy and just supply the data in a feed like their iTunes feed.

why not just use the apple site where the data is being scraped?

it works fine to find supply of products.

As mentioned above, the layout of the tracker site was much more convenient - you know, Apple-like - than Apple's own store site.

For example, if I'm interested in a 64GB Space Gray Ipad Air with AT&T, I have to select that complete configuration and then "check availability". The results give me *only* that configuration. The tracker site laid everything out that the store had. It may not have had the 64GB version, but maybe it had the 32, or 128, to allow me to make a more informed decision without going all the way back and reconfiguring a device to search for.

I'm not sure how a person can violate terms of usage they never "accepted" - there is no pop-up that appears whenever someone visits Apple's website to make sure you agree to their terms of usage.

I'm pretty sure if this were to goto court (and the defendent wasn't bled of all his money) then the court would probably rule against Apple, or require them to create a splash screen for Terms of Usage.

It was a bit silly sending the takedown notice. What they should have done, and what they are free to do, is simply block his IPs. An optional courtesy would be to send a message to him explaining why that happened.

They are not obligated to let people access their website, regardless of the validity of their Terms of Usage.

Generally a search engine doesn't search a database. That is a bit beyond just sniffing files. Most scraping uses the websites own database search scheme. I could see a customer seeing their response time slowed while some scrapper read the entire database on inquiry at a time. If I were Apple, I would be pissed.

Mordy should just release the code for the site under an open source license. Then the community could use it to develop a desktop or web client to serve the same purpose.

Or people could just host their own version of it or something, but an open source client that relies only on Apple.com would be immune to any cease and desist letters. Since there's no domain to send them to.

If this is a TOS issue, then the DMCA should not be used. The TFA leads me to believe there was no DMCA notice.

There does not appear to be any copyright issue at all. Apple could claim that the data on their web site is copyrighted, but there is already well established precedent that facts cannot be copyrighted. That includes entire phone directories. Or baseball stats.

If there is a TOS issue, then Apple could have effectively solved it themselves by not allowing the bot which does the scraping.

It is not a contract issue unless there is a signed contract.

Apple might be concerned about ads on the Apple Tracker site. But I doubt that is their concern.

I think it is just Apple being a dick. Again. Because they can. Because they are too big to fight. If you consult the Apple-Tracker site, you migtht not visit a particular Apple store because it is out of the product you are looking for, and Apple would prefer you waste your time, fuel, parking frustration to come to a store only to discover they are out of stock. That is being a dick. Or Apple would prefer you to waste time getting the data, less conveniently organized, on Apple's own website in order to discover product availability. That also is being a dick. In the end, no matter how you analyze it, Apple is being a dick. With legal nastygrams and shuttering a website as icing on the dick.

Contrary to the update to the article, the form apple sent is clearly a DMCA takedown notice, given the title and the UNDER PENALTY OF PERJURY etc bits.

Can you be clearer about this, since the updated article is pretty sure that it isn't a DMCA request? The actual complaint, when you read the document, is about violating the ToS, and doesn't specify copyright at all, though it does say "among other things."

It was a bit silly sending the takedown notice. What they should have done, and what they are free to do, is simply block his IPs. An optional courtesy would be to send a message to him explaining why that happened.

They are not obligated to let people access their website, regardless of the validity of their Terms of Usage.

That confirms that Apple is just being a dick.

What you are saying is that what Apple should have done and what they are free to do is be a dick in a different way by blocking his IP address.

Apple is not obligated to let people access their website, but blocking someone for no good reason is just being a dick.

What is Apple's real motive for not wanting people to have convenient access to information about where to find Apple products? One motive is "I'm a dick and I want people to waste their time."

The guy was doing Apple a favor. If they really wanted to put him out of business, they could have supplied the data in his format on their site. But hey, let's just be a dick because...we can.

To be fair, the information that AppleTracker provided could have introduced unhealthy competition between stores, or increased customer inconvenience in the long run. If people see that none of the stores in their area have a large supply, they might travel a ways to get to another store. Which means that they wouldn't be at their local store, where they might potentially buy something else. Not only that, the people traveling long distance would reduce the supply for other areas, forcing even more people to travel long distance.

The correct solution would be to simply increase supply, but it's not like Apple can just snap their fingers to replenish their stock.

The reason they don't bother to incorporate AppleTracker's ability into their website is probably more of a time and resources thing than anything else. But who knows, maybe we'll see Apple implement something like it in the future.

I'm confused, obviously the DMCA is simply a corporate "STFU" button. That's how it's always been (ab)used for the last 15 years. No illegitimate use of the DMCA has been prosecuted because of the weasel words used in that part of the law designed to let them escape punishment.